


keep standing there and i'll burn right through your soul

by karennninas



Series: diner au [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karennninas/pseuds/karennninas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she listens to the beeping of her little brother's heart. she wonders what she did wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep standing there and i'll burn right through your soul

**Author's Note:**

> -major warning for suicide attempt and discussion of a suicide attempt in this fic-
> 
> shoutout to my amazing beta @iluzjonista for being amazing. and for having more medical knowledge than i. and for being AMAZING. 
> 
> comments/kudos are giant fluffy blankets on a stormy night

Angelica had been terrified before. She’d been terrified when she heard that a seventeen-year-old had dropped out of school to marry an abusive man. She’d been terrified when she realized that forgot to study for her Finance 102 exam.

 

She’d never been too terrified to move. Not until now, as she watched, in frozen horror, her sister clung to her near-unconscious boyfriend while he bled out onto the floor. She heard Eliza screaming,  _ Angie, call 911,  _ but she couldn’t move. She stood, staring, for a few dozen agonizing seconds until she snapped into action and grabbed her cell phone. 

 

“ _ Hello, this is Angelica Schuyler at 36B on Richmond Avenue, my friend-- he’s bleeding, I need an ambulance-- _ ”

 

**

 

Angie had been waiting for an hour in the hospital waiting room for Alex to get bandaged and stitched. Eliza sat on her right, slumped forward in exhaustion. Every few minutes, she convulsed in a quiet sob. Peggy sat on Angie’s left, motionless and staring. Her eyes -- her youthful, bright eyes -- had been sapped of their usual energy, left tired and empty. Her hair was stuffed into a bun at the back of her head; the parts that had been closest to her face still caked in the contents of her own stomach. Angie held both her sisters’ hands. 

 

A nurse came and asked if they were family. Angie nodded. She led the three of them to Alex’s hospital room. Eliza clung to her big sister’s waist. Peggy looked like she would be sick again. His eyes were closed, face pale, but he was alive. The monitor next to his bed beeped with his every heartbeat, as proof.

 

She knew he didn’t want to be. 

 

His arm-- the one that has been sliced open in four, uniform cuts, the one that had bled onto Eliza’s shirt and spilled onto the floor -- was wrapped in white bandage. His other wrist had a needle taped in, connecting him to the bag of saline hanging next to his bed. 

 

Slowly, Peggy let go of Angelica’s arm. She walked around the bed, to the side with the bandaged arm. Slowly, she reached out to touch his hand. 

 

She flinched. It was minuscule, more like a twitch. Her eyes widened and she ran out of the room. Her sisters listened to her vomit into a recycling bin. 

 

Eliza closed her eyes and took a breath. She loosed her arm around Angie’s waist and walked to the chair next to Alex’s bed. She looked frail. It had taken her two hours to completely fall apart, for her eyes to sink shut in desperation and her hands jitter while she held Alex’s , laid her head down on the mattress next to his hip. She prayed. 

 

Eight hours prior, they’d been in the kitchen of the diner. They’d been listening to the radio and talking. Alex had been sitting on the counter, Peggy had been leaning against the fridge, and Eliza had been waiting tables. Alex wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t eating. He’d barely been smiling. Angie should’ve noticed. She should’ve  _ noticed _ that something was wrong. 

 

She swayed, still in the doorway. Peggy hadn’t reentered the room; she sat on the floor just outside, knees clamped to her chest. Angie knew she was traumatized. 

 

She could’ve prevented this. 

 

**

 

At quarter to midnight, Eliza had an abrupt realization, sprinted out of the room to find a payphone and call Jack. He was still in Charleston with his sister; he didn’t know that his best friend ( _ ex-boyfriend _ , a tired, angry voice in the back of Eliza’s head had whispered) had tried to kill himself. 

 

Peggy was asleep on the floor, now inside the room, next to the potted plant by the door. The room was silent aside from the  _ beep-beep _ of Alex’s heart. Angie barely thought twice before climbing onto the hospital bed and curling up beside her friend, holding onto his right arm and pressing her forehead to his shoulder. 

 

She wanted to stay like that forever. Lying next to Alex, holding onto him, completely sure that he was alive. In control. Listening to him breathe, knowing he was safe, knowing-- 

 

“Ange?” 

 

Her heart stopped. She was sure of it. Alex’s words were muffled; Angie’s frizzy hair was half-covering his face, but he spoke and her heart stopped. Her head jerked up and she propped herself up on her elbow to look at his face- his eyelids cracked, his chapped and parted. 

 

“You’re awake,” she said bluntly, at a loss for any other words. She hadn’t thought about what she’d say to him, how she’d balance telling him how much she loved him and how much she  _ hated _ him for what he did. 

 

His throat creaked. She listened to him take a shaky breath, watched him close his eyes in search of what to say. “I--”

 

She beat him to it. “You made Eliza cry.” She was still laying on the bed with him, still had one hand clutched onto his upper arm, still hung her head barely a foot above his face. “Eliza cried. Peggy’s already thrown up twice, and Jack’s on the phone now; God knows how he is--” 

 

“ _ I’m so sorry _ \--”

 

“I don’t-- I don’t need you to be sorry. I just want you to know--” and her tone was so much gentler now-- “I want you to know what it would do to us.” She lowered her head and kissed his forehead. “If you...  _ left _ like that, we’d fall apart.” She sniffled. “And I can’t have that.” 

 

**

 

A year and a half later, she can’t even forget the rhythm of his breath has he’d laid next to her, the rasped tone of his voice when he’d apologized ( _ over  _ and  _ over _ , and she  _ knew _ which times he meant it and which times he didn’t).

 

He’s her best friend, her sister’s boyfriend, and there isn’t a doubt in her mind that he’ll be her brother-in-law someday. She has to act normal. She has to act like she doesn’t  _ lose her mind _ when he skips lunch, or when he goes a day without teasing Peggy. 

 

She could’ve prevented this. 


End file.
